I know nothing. There is not a single fact in this universe that I can state is unequivocally true. Even the most established laws of physics are just our best explanations of our observations to date. They’re held up pretty damn well so far, but we don’t know why they are the way they are. For all we know they could be part of some larger pattern we cannot see the whole of. It is entirely possible for the laws of physics to change tomorrow. Tomorrow the universe could change state, and suddenly astrology would actually work.
There is no such thing as an absolute truth. There are only things that explain, to greater or less reliability, all the things we observe. And it is not necessary to have the same level of proof to accept all propositions.
If you want to convince me that astrology now works, I am going to need a whole lot of evidence. If you want to convince me that the universe has reordered itself, and that planets now go around the Earth, I’m going to need a ton of evidence. But the reason I demand such evidence is that these are very consequential things. The order of the universe and our place in it is one of those Big questions with a capital B. And the laws of physics matter. My background is in structural engineering. If the laws of physics are changing, I damn well need to know about it. But I’m going to demand quite a lot of proof for that.
But some things? They are simply not worth the effort to question the veracity of. Whether this story is true or not has zero impact on my life. I can assume it’s true, and if it’s not, oh well. We can never be certain of anything, and the level of certainty we can achieve on anything is a function of the amount of effort we put in to assessing its validity. And for casual stories? There simply isn’t need to drill deeper.
The only time I feel it worth to drill into the truth and question such a story is if it’s a story potentially being used to target a marginalized group or community. Hate groups and individuals sometimes deliberately spread numerous negative casual stories about members of marginalized groups, simply to associate that group with negative things in the public consciousness. If this story mentioned the race or sexual orientation of the homeless guy, I would be a bit more suspect and skeptical.
But otherwise, what’s wrong with a little willful suspension of disbelief? There is ultimately no such thing as a true thing or a false thing, just a sliding scale of truthfulness. Not even the laws of physics are absolute. You cannot determine the truth or falseness of anything. You can only determine how much effort it is worth to put in to investigating a thing.
You put a little more effort here so I’ll respond directly. Just because human beings don’t fully understand reality doesn’t necessarily have any bearing on whether or not reality exists.
You claim that tomorrow the universe could change state and astrology would suddenly work. I disagree with that claim, because there’s at least a few thousand, if not a few billion years of evidence that would indicate that physics, chemistry, biology, etc have been functioning according to the same fundamental laws for a long time.
I don’t think there is any argument that would convince me that such laws could simply change randomly, having been so consistent for so long. And you seem to generally agree with me based on what you say after your introductory paragraph.
But then in your final paragraph you get back into this arbitrarian mindset. If you actually believed the laws of physics weren’t absolute, then you would surely be in constant suspense that you might die at any moment. Whether gravity were to stop working, or inertia, or the strong nuclear force, the consequences would be immediate and dire. If a single law of physics were to stop working for an instant, the entire universe as we know it would cease to exist, or at least be thrown into absolute chaos. Which is perhaps the strongest argument for their validity, because we can observe 15 billion years of history where that doesn’t seem to have occurred.
With regard to this story, I mentioned more about misinformation on the internet in my other comment. Basically, people telling lies on the internet caused a lot of people to refuse the covid vaccine and die from covid. That’s the most obvious example, but there are many more insidious example that are harder to definitively quantify.
Finally, and perhaps most emphatically, I’m going to have to disagree with your take on homeless people. I would argue that homeless people are almost the prototypical example of a marginalized group or community. There are many people who are LGBTQ and/or part of racial minority groups that are rich, successful, prominent, well respected members of mainstream society. The same cannot be said about homeless people.
As for how the consequences of internet misinformation relate to this specific story, I can’t really say. I just think it’s impossible to know what the ultimate effects of misinformation will be, and thus it’s best to avoid whenever possible.
I know nothing. There is not a single fact in this universe that I can state is unequivocally true. Even the most established laws of physics are just our best explanations of our observations to date. They’re held up pretty damn well so far, but we don’t know why they are the way they are. For all we know they could be part of some larger pattern we cannot see the whole of. It is entirely possible for the laws of physics to change tomorrow. Tomorrow the universe could change state, and suddenly astrology would actually work.
There is no such thing as an absolute truth. There are only things that explain, to greater or less reliability, all the things we observe. And it is not necessary to have the same level of proof to accept all propositions.
If you want to convince me that astrology now works, I am going to need a whole lot of evidence. If you want to convince me that the universe has reordered itself, and that planets now go around the Earth, I’m going to need a ton of evidence. But the reason I demand such evidence is that these are very consequential things. The order of the universe and our place in it is one of those Big questions with a capital B. And the laws of physics matter. My background is in structural engineering. If the laws of physics are changing, I damn well need to know about it. But I’m going to demand quite a lot of proof for that.
But some things? They are simply not worth the effort to question the veracity of. Whether this story is true or not has zero impact on my life. I can assume it’s true, and if it’s not, oh well. We can never be certain of anything, and the level of certainty we can achieve on anything is a function of the amount of effort we put in to assessing its validity. And for casual stories? There simply isn’t need to drill deeper.
The only time I feel it worth to drill into the truth and question such a story is if it’s a story potentially being used to target a marginalized group or community. Hate groups and individuals sometimes deliberately spread numerous negative casual stories about members of marginalized groups, simply to associate that group with negative things in the public consciousness. If this story mentioned the race or sexual orientation of the homeless guy, I would be a bit more suspect and skeptical.
But otherwise, what’s wrong with a little willful suspension of disbelief? There is ultimately no such thing as a true thing or a false thing, just a sliding scale of truthfulness. Not even the laws of physics are absolute. You cannot determine the truth or falseness of anything. You can only determine how much effort it is worth to put in to investigating a thing.
You put a little more effort here so I’ll respond directly. Just because human beings don’t fully understand reality doesn’t necessarily have any bearing on whether or not reality exists.
You claim that tomorrow the universe could change state and astrology would suddenly work. I disagree with that claim, because there’s at least a few thousand, if not a few billion years of evidence that would indicate that physics, chemistry, biology, etc have been functioning according to the same fundamental laws for a long time.
I don’t think there is any argument that would convince me that such laws could simply change randomly, having been so consistent for so long. And you seem to generally agree with me based on what you say after your introductory paragraph.
But then in your final paragraph you get back into this arbitrarian mindset. If you actually believed the laws of physics weren’t absolute, then you would surely be in constant suspense that you might die at any moment. Whether gravity were to stop working, or inertia, or the strong nuclear force, the consequences would be immediate and dire. If a single law of physics were to stop working for an instant, the entire universe as we know it would cease to exist, or at least be thrown into absolute chaos. Which is perhaps the strongest argument for their validity, because we can observe 15 billion years of history where that doesn’t seem to have occurred.
With regard to this story, I mentioned more about misinformation on the internet in my other comment. Basically, people telling lies on the internet caused a lot of people to refuse the covid vaccine and die from covid. That’s the most obvious example, but there are many more insidious example that are harder to definitively quantify.
Finally, and perhaps most emphatically, I’m going to have to disagree with your take on homeless people. I would argue that homeless people are almost the prototypical example of a marginalized group or community. There are many people who are LGBTQ and/or part of racial minority groups that are rich, successful, prominent, well respected members of mainstream society. The same cannot be said about homeless people.
As for how the consequences of internet misinformation relate to this specific story, I can’t really say. I just think it’s impossible to know what the ultimate effects of misinformation will be, and thus it’s best to avoid whenever possible.